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patsaintsfan's review against another edition
4.0
For an 80's comic book, I really really enjoyed this one.
jokoloyo's review against another edition
2.0
At the beginning I was excited with the premise that Trigon was back, and Raven became his adjutant. But then the Trigon back from his isolation and I was disappointed. Trigon is basically no more than a powerful puppet. For example, Starfire could sneaked out behind Trigon's back.
With this continuation arc, I prefer TNTT finished the story up to The First Annual.
With this continuation arc, I prefer TNTT finished the story up to The First Annual.
jokoloyo's review against another edition
1.0
So many facepalm moments when reading this arc.
I prefer to see "Who is Donna Troy" (WIDT) issue is in another universe than "Who is Wonder Girl" (WIWG). The attempt in WIWG to overwrite the origin of Wonder Girl in WIDT was unbearable to read, I prefer to skip that part in WIWG. It was not a reset, but the story really tried to explain that the origin story in WIDT was not the truth. But there were so many inconsistencies.
WIWG has another inconsistencies/reset with Teen Titans previous stories regarding The Greek Titans. The Greek Titans in WIWG arc is different with The Titans in previous arc where Helios freed himself and his fellow Titans then they want to take back Olympus from Olympian Gods. The art concept of the Titans of both arc are the same, but the characters are different. And both arc happened in the same universe. Facepalm time!
Maybe I still seek Judah Contract arc, but I don't expect much for later issues of Teen Titans after this WIWG arc.
I prefer to see "Who is Donna Troy" (WIDT) issue is in another universe than "Who is Wonder Girl" (WIWG). The attempt in WIWG to overwrite the origin of Wonder Girl in WIDT was unbearable to read, I prefer to skip that part in WIWG. It was not a reset, but the story really tried to explain that the origin story in WIDT was not the truth. But there were so many inconsistencies.
Spoiler
if Donna didn't live in an orphanage nor had foster parents, and these Titans could really took care the fake origins of Donna Troy (DT) into smallest details, such as putting false evidences and false memory to all the people that Robin interviewed in WIDT, how could Phoebe seeking DT just like an ordinary human, and started the story in "fake family" of DT.WIWG has another inconsistencies/reset with Teen Titans previous stories regarding The Greek Titans. The Greek Titans in WIWG arc is different with The Titans in previous arc where Helios freed himself and his fellow Titans then they want to take back Olympus from Olympian Gods. The art concept of the Titans of both arc are the same, but the characters are different. And both arc happened in the same universe. Facepalm time!
Maybe I still seek Judah Contract arc, but I don't expect much for later issues of Teen Titans after this WIWG arc.
ekansthepokemon's review
4.0
More good stories in this one as well. I especially like the miniseries. Being able to dive into some individual titans' backstories was a true delight.
captwinghead's review
2.0
This is... hard to rate.
One, the least interesting character so far in this series is this rather bland, whitebread Wally West. Admittedly, I only know this character from the live action TV show, Young Justice animated show and Rebirth one shot. I at least found him charming in those incarnations. There is nothing charming about him in this series. He starts out pretty much brainwashed by Raven and after he blew up at her (understandably so) and expressed conflict over still feeling as though he loved her, he's just been here. There's nothing remarkable about him or particularly likable, for that matter. Here we have him writing a letter to his parents and I'm just interested in Beast Boy and Cyborg's little mission in the letter and not Wally's "plight".
I liked seeing everyone come together to celebrate Cyborg's 19th birthday. Especially since Sarah got with the kids to write a card for him because they've missed seeing him around. I miss that relationship but I get why Vic is staying away.
Sidenote: there's a point where Donna's divorcé husband refers to the team as "youngsters" and I still want that pervo away from her.
Also, I found out Gar is 16 in this series. I like the character and I'll get to more of his origin in a bit but at times, he's written as a freaking creeper. I can't ignore that. One, it's never okay to consistently make suggestive comments towards someone. Two, if someone explicitly tells you to fucking cut it out, cut it out. In the last volume, Starfire says "After the shit I went through for the guy we legit only saw in two issues, I don't appreciate you hitting on me, green boy" (paraphrasing) and Gar's like "Oh, you're sad?" Like that's the only justifiable reason Starfire would have a problem with it. I like Starfire's history, I like what she stands for but this whole Beast Boy thing is yet another sign of the gross writing women had to endure (and still do) in comics.
So, I preface with that because it all happened in the last volume. In this one, we get Gar hitting on her every time he has a line and then the gross line of "I would give you my personal hickeys". "personal hickeys"? What. the. fuck. You freaking creepazoid. I don't really care how old he is, that's just gross.
The missions in this volume didn't really stick out to me at all. Then we have the origins for the team retold.
Raven's is a giant blob of meh. I don't like this character, I must be honest. I like her on the animated stuff to an extent. Or at least, she has a sort of charm there. Here, I just find nothing likable aside from thinking her ability to absorb other's pain is interesting. It's a wondrously empathetic power for a character who is consistently written as watching Starfire receive comfort and sympathy and internally lamenting the fact that she personally feels she's never gotten any. It makes her look selfish, to be honest.
Starfire's is wonderful! I love this character, I love that she's not only passionate in loving others but that she also has a thirst for battle and combat. It's a rarity to get a female character with seemingly limitless power, even rarer for a female character that enjoys fighting. Again, the cartoon made some questionable choices because pretty much all of that is gone on the cartoon but I love her here.
Gar's is sad. We show him cleaning up his (surprisingly long) history for the others. Saying his parents were great (when his dad was a neglectful, (possibly verbally abusive) mad scientist bastard). Saying he loved being an actor, when he was treated like garbage. Saying he had lots of friends when he was bullied. Minimizing the abuse he suffered at the hands of his guardian. We get a tiny amount of his history being forced to be a child criminal. He's led a really sad life and he has had to grieve two sets of parents before the age of 16. I would be interested to read a solo book about him, to be honest. One that delves into that a little bit more but this was a period in comics where characters just popped into team books and their origins were told in small flashbacks. But now, Gar is almost always just the comedic relief in team books and rarely explored that in depth. It's a bummer because holy interesting but really shitty origin story, Batman.
Then we get Victor's where I had to roll my eyes because it was just ignorant as hell. Just FYI, if you're a white guy, don't write a story where the black characters fighting against racism are the bad guys. I'm side eying the hell out of Wolfman. Firstly, I've never appreciated black characters having their dialogue written as though they don't understand grammar as much as the white characters. Secondly, it never made that much sense seeing as Victor is highly educated (perhaps more than the others). He gives an explanation like "I can talk however I want" but... let's be real, we know why he speaks that way. Thirdly, I don't appreciate making Victor yell a lot and then having Wally's letter refer to him as though he's your typical angry black man. Victor being in this book at all and getting this complex of a history is a wonder in itself but I must mention the stuff that rubbed me the wrong way. Like this stupid, problematic activist turned terrorist storyline.
Victor's parents are rather controlling and Victor was homeschooled. He went out on the street at like eight years old and met what looks like a grown man on the street. Red fucking alert. This guy "befriends him" (Call an adult) and Victor regards him as his only friend. This guy soon gets Victor involved in committing crimes because black people are criminals and Victor goes to jail. His father scolds him, tells Victor to stay away from this guy and Victor gets angry. As a peace offering, his parents allow him to enroll in public school and join sports because all Victor wants to do is be an athlete for reasons that are never really explained? I guess I should be intrigued because usually the black guy's involved in sports to provide for his entire impoverished family and that's not Victor's story.
Anyway, Victor's got scholarships and everything and for some reason I really don't understand, this guy from the street is still in his life. Only now, he wants Victor to join his "radical" group combatting racism. This group decides to host a fight against some... random white people? I couldn't quite gather if they were a hate group or just random white people but Victor goes even though he's against it, stuff pops off and Victor gets involved because he's filled with "hate". Sure. He gets in trouble, his dad gets mad. Then this ridiculous example of a black activist group decides to go further or whatever. Victor breaks away from them because he thinks they're all imagining the threat against him. Let's get into what really shitty about this take.
This hyperbolic, violent group is the only anti racism organization presented in this series. Imagine if this is the only representation you see because you're white and you don't have black people to explain what was really going on at the time. What are you getting out of this? The racism and hate black people experience is all imagined, the groups combatting that are violent and want to kill white people, and only the "good blacks" like the Stone family are worth caring about. It teaches that the "good" black people are complacent and docile and work within the system. This is written during a time where people were protesting police brutality, hate crimes, imperialism, and being killed for asking for basic human decency. But sure, these slights are all imagined. Look at Dr. Stone, he's a distinguished scientist. If these black people weren't so busy protesting and put their heads in books, they too could succeed like Stone did. Meanwhile, black people were still struggling to get accepted into schools at all and even less of them were accepted into science programs. But, you know, Stone's success was totally a possibility for everyone.
So, I'm not trying to accuse Wolfman of intentionally presenting this racist view of what black activism was but it should be noted that this was an incredibly ignorant way to present this issue. It shouldn't have been presented at all. I feel as though Wolfman presented Victor as closer to racist stereotypes of black characters (improper grammar, quite often angry, mistaken for scary) when he wanted to and then presented him as the "ideal" black man when he wanted to. He picks and chooses what Victor stands for and that's problematic, especially when he's the only black character we regularly see. With another character to offset this ignorant view, a black character that shows what the Black Power movement really stood for, this could have been balanced a lot better. Instead, we only have Victor's parents, the "good" blacks and these poor representations of activists turned terrorists.
So, I had to mention that because I'm glad Victor Stone exists but, yet again, I question the writer's intentions.
One, the least interesting character so far in this series is this rather bland, whitebread Wally West. Admittedly, I only know this character from the live action TV show, Young Justice animated show and Rebirth one shot. I at least found him charming in those incarnations. There is nothing charming about him in this series. He starts out pretty much brainwashed by Raven and after he blew up at her (understandably so) and expressed conflict over still feeling as though he loved her, he's just been here. There's nothing remarkable about him or particularly likable, for that matter. Here we have him writing a letter to his parents and I'm just interested in Beast Boy and Cyborg's little mission in the letter and not Wally's "plight".
I liked seeing everyone come together to celebrate Cyborg's 19th birthday. Especially since Sarah got with the kids to write a card for him because they've missed seeing him around. I miss that relationship but I get why Vic is staying away.
Sidenote: there's a point where Donna's divorcé husband refers to the team as "youngsters" and I still want that pervo away from her.
Also, I found out Gar is 16 in this series. I like the character and I'll get to more of his origin in a bit but at times, he's written as a freaking creeper. I can't ignore that. One, it's never okay to consistently make suggestive comments towards someone. Two, if someone explicitly tells you to fucking cut it out, cut it out. In the last volume, Starfire says "After the shit I went through for the guy we legit only saw in two issues, I don't appreciate you hitting on me, green boy" (paraphrasing) and Gar's like "Oh, you're sad?" Like that's the only justifiable reason Starfire would have a problem with it. I like Starfire's history, I like what she stands for but this whole Beast Boy thing is yet another sign of the gross writing women had to endure (and still do) in comics.
So, I preface with that because it all happened in the last volume. In this one, we get Gar hitting on her every time he has a line and then the gross line of "I would give you my personal hickeys". "personal hickeys"? What. the. fuck. You freaking creepazoid. I don't really care how old he is, that's just gross.
The missions in this volume didn't really stick out to me at all. Then we have the origins for the team retold.
Raven's is a giant blob of meh. I don't like this character, I must be honest. I like her on the animated stuff to an extent. Or at least, she has a sort of charm there. Here, I just find nothing likable aside from thinking her ability to absorb other's pain is interesting. It's a wondrously empathetic power for a character who is consistently written as watching Starfire receive comfort and sympathy and internally lamenting the fact that she personally feels she's never gotten any. It makes her look selfish, to be honest.
Starfire's is wonderful! I love this character, I love that she's not only passionate in loving others but that she also has a thirst for battle and combat. It's a rarity to get a female character with seemingly limitless power, even rarer for a female character that enjoys fighting. Again, the cartoon made some questionable choices because pretty much all of that is gone on the cartoon but I love her here.
Gar's is sad. We show him cleaning up his (surprisingly long) history for the others. Saying his parents were great (when his dad was a neglectful, (possibly verbally abusive) mad scientist bastard). Saying he loved being an actor, when he was treated like garbage. Saying he had lots of friends when he was bullied. Minimizing the abuse he suffered at the hands of his guardian. We get a tiny amount of his history being forced to be a child criminal. He's led a really sad life and he has had to grieve two sets of parents before the age of 16. I would be interested to read a solo book about him, to be honest. One that delves into that a little bit more but this was a period in comics where characters just popped into team books and their origins were told in small flashbacks. But now, Gar is almost always just the comedic relief in team books and rarely explored that in depth. It's a bummer because holy interesting but really shitty origin story, Batman.
Then we get Victor's where I had to roll my eyes because it was just ignorant as hell. Just FYI, if you're a white guy, don't write a story where the black characters fighting against racism are the bad guys. I'm side eying the hell out of Wolfman. Firstly, I've never appreciated black characters having their dialogue written as though they don't understand grammar as much as the white characters. Secondly, it never made that much sense seeing as Victor is highly educated (perhaps more than the others). He gives an explanation like "I can talk however I want" but... let's be real, we know why he speaks that way. Thirdly, I don't appreciate making Victor yell a lot and then having Wally's letter refer to him as though he's your typical angry black man. Victor being in this book at all and getting this complex of a history is a wonder in itself but I must mention the stuff that rubbed me the wrong way. Like this stupid, problematic activist turned terrorist storyline.
Victor's parents are rather controlling and Victor was homeschooled. He went out on the street at like eight years old and met what looks like a grown man on the street. Red fucking alert. This guy "befriends him" (Call an adult) and Victor regards him as his only friend. This guy soon gets Victor involved in committing crimes because black people are criminals and Victor goes to jail. His father scolds him, tells Victor to stay away from this guy and Victor gets angry. As a peace offering, his parents allow him to enroll in public school and join sports because all Victor wants to do is be an athlete for reasons that are never really explained? I guess I should be intrigued because usually the black guy's involved in sports to provide for his entire impoverished family and that's not Victor's story.
Anyway, Victor's got scholarships and everything and for some reason I really don't understand, this guy from the street is still in his life. Only now, he wants Victor to join his "radical" group combatting racism. This group decides to host a fight against some... random white people? I couldn't quite gather if they were a hate group or just random white people but Victor goes even though he's against it, stuff pops off and Victor gets involved because he's filled with "hate". Sure. He gets in trouble, his dad gets mad. Then this ridiculous example of a black activist group decides to go further or whatever. Victor breaks away from them because he thinks they're all imagining the threat against him. Let's get into what really shitty about this take.
This hyperbolic, violent group is the only anti racism organization presented in this series. Imagine if this is the only representation you see because you're white and you don't have black people to explain what was really going on at the time. What are you getting out of this? The racism and hate black people experience is all imagined, the groups combatting that are violent and want to kill white people, and only the "good blacks" like the Stone family are worth caring about. It teaches that the "good" black people are complacent and docile and work within the system. This is written during a time where people were protesting police brutality, hate crimes, imperialism, and being killed for asking for basic human decency. But sure, these slights are all imagined. Look at Dr. Stone, he's a distinguished scientist. If these black people weren't so busy protesting and put their heads in books, they too could succeed like Stone did. Meanwhile, black people were still struggling to get accepted into schools at all and even less of them were accepted into science programs. But, you know, Stone's success was totally a possibility for everyone.
So, I'm not trying to accuse Wolfman of intentionally presenting this racist view of what black activism was but it should be noted that this was an incredibly ignorant way to present this issue. It shouldn't have been presented at all. I feel as though Wolfman presented Victor as closer to racist stereotypes of black characters (improper grammar, quite often angry, mistaken for scary) when he wanted to and then presented him as the "ideal" black man when he wanted to. He picks and chooses what Victor stands for and that's problematic, especially when he's the only black character we regularly see. With another character to offset this ignorant view, a black character that shows what the Black Power movement really stood for, this could have been balanced a lot better. Instead, we only have Victor's parents, the "good" blacks and these poor representations of activists turned terrorists.
So, I had to mention that because I'm glad Victor Stone exists but, yet again, I question the writer's intentions.
depreydeprey's review
4.0
The four Teen Titans issues in this collection are so, so good and really a return to form of the early issues in this series. The four issue miniseries of individual Titan origin stories is more up and down and hurts the collection on the whole.
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